Evaluating key hormone levels may help clinicians more accurately predict a woman’s risk for breast cancer, research suggests. Using samples from the Nurses’ Health Study, scientists analyzed breast cancer risk among 473 postmenopausal women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and 770 women without breast cancer. They found that women with higher estrogen, androgen, and prolactin levels were at higher risk. The researchers concluded that including the presence of high levels of key hormones boosted the accuracy of predicting those women at higher risk of invasive breast cancer.

Tworoger SS, Zhang X, Eliassen AH, Qian J, Colditz GA, Willett WC, Rosner BA, Kraft P, Hankinson SE. Inclusion of endogenous hormone levels in risk prediction models of postmenopausal breast cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2014 Oct 1;32(28):3111-7. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2014.56.1068. Epub 2014 Aug 18. PubMed PMID: 25135988; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4171356.
Full text: http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/32/28/3111.full